Contents: Fenstad's Mother / Charles Baxter -- Customs of the country / Madison Smartt Bell -- Living to be a hundred / Robert Boswell -- Black hand girl / Blanche McCrary Boyd -- Kubuku Rides (This is it) / Larry Brown -- Ralph the Duck / Frederick Busch -- White angel / Michael Cunningham -- Flowers of boredom / Rick DeMarinis -- Edie: a life / Harriet Doerr -- Concert party / Mavis Gallant -- Why I decide to kill myself and other jokes / Douglas Glover -- Disneyland / Barbara Gowdy -- Aunt Moon's young man / Linda Hogan -- Displacement / David Wong Louie -- Management of grief / Bharati Mukherjee -- Meneseteung / Alice Munro -- What men love for / Dale Ray Phillips -- Strays / Mark Richard -- Boy on the train / Arthur Robinson -- Letter writer / M.T. Sharif.

Selected from U.S. and Canadian magazines by Margaret Atwood with Shannon Ravenel; with an introduction by Margaret Atwood.